Sabini posted on his Twitter account that this Saturday, April 2, “Teaching students were doing a graffiti, the police asked them for the data and that they had to go testify under threat of contempt, they went to headquarters and signed.”
The Frente Amplio legislator denounced that the government “criminalizes social protest and curtails freedom of expression.”
Given this, Silva replied that protesting is absolutely legitimate. “If we have done it ourselves in our times as student militants. What is not legitimate is damaging the facades of educational centers that public education is recovering with the people’s money”.
But the discussion between Sabini and Silva, through Twitter, far from stopping there, continued with several more tweets.
Indeed, Sabini said that he did not share Silva’s response at all. “We live in a democratic society with freedom of expression, the persecution that they have installed in education has no close precedent, sad examples like this are plenty. Take responsibility for your actions.”
Given this, Robert Silva replied to the senator: “You are very wrong, no persecution. Freedom of expression has nothing to do with messing with educational facades. Also, and as a teacher you know, there are students with different positions and you have to respect them all. Arrogance and imposition are not valid”.
But Sabini returned to the attack and told the head of Education: “Sending the police to arrest students cannot be called anything other than persecution and it is the least educational thing I can think of to address a situation in an educational center. It is elementary and respecting the position of other students does not mean shutting up your own”
Silva answered again: “Do you have any idea how much it costs the people to recover the facades of the educational buildings as well as their general maintenance? There are many ways to express themselves and there is no doubt that in education we respect them, now it is not right to do what they do and we must all collaborate”.
Sabini insisted: “The best solution you can think of is to send the police and have their statements taken under threat of contempt?”
Given this, Silva said: “The best solution is to work together so that these things that you also know are wrong and have nothing to do with freedom of expression, do not happen. It is the people with their money who are recovering educational facades. I show you how the Escuela Argentina is doing”.
But the discussion continued and Sabini told Silva: “The best solution is to take charge of educational issues and not entrust the police with the solution of a conflict that the education authorities have to resolve and that, far from resolving it, make it worse.” .
Silva took up the post again: “At all times I take responsibility and I proudly refer to the facts since March 19, 2020. To say publicly what you say, you will surely have evidence, right? I reiterate, and you know it, what they do is not right and together we have to work so that it does not continue to happen.
But the Frente Amplio senator, far from appeasing the discussion, returned to the attack: “I refer to the evidence: the LUC establishes that if they did not go to the Headquarters they could be accused of contempt for exercising freedom of expression, prosecuted and not be able to teach. Is gravity understood? You are defending police intervention, not me.”
Faced with such an expression, the ANEP chief replied: “I am defending the people’s money that supports public education and with it we are recovering public buildings. You defend the opposite. In addition, and just in case, freedom of expression is fully guaranteed in all areas.
But Sabini limited: “Attributing intentions is quite low on your part. In addition, I reiterate that you are trampling on the Constitution since you cannot do politics of any kind. This is the end of the exchange.”
Indeed, that was the final point of the discussion between Sabini and Silva, but other legislators and also dozens of Internet users who defended one or another position joined.
The complaint
For its part, the Teaching Student Center denounced that on the morning of this Saturday, April 2, the teaching students decided to paint graffiti on the walls of the study house, which were covered up by the authorities.
They denounced that on that day two patrolmen from the Montevideo Police Response Unit (URPM) showed up and demanded that they identify themselves to “verify the police action,” and they were told that they would not be called to testify.
“Given the refusal to identify themselves, in order to avoid going through the same process that three compañeras had to face at the end of last year, declaring in the misdemeanor court, the officer began to ask for support from other units, and avoiding what would be a savage police repression we decided to identify all the people present, “they said in a statement.
“However, the officer decided to take identification exclusively from six of the 20 compañeros and compañeras who were present there. At that time we enforced our right, we demanded the identification of the rest of the officers, the URPM officer and the 2nd Sectional officer identifying themselves, and there was a second Sectional officer who refused to identify himself”, the teaching students detail.
After that, the officer informed them that, at the request of a judge, they had to appear in Section 2 to testify about what had happened, or else they would declare themselves in contempt. “We went to the Sectional where three companions signed a certificate that they appeared, but they did not report what happened since the lawyers were not present to support them. Given this, we are waiting for the compañeras to call them to testify again.”
“These facts do not scare us at all, the walls will continue to belong to the students and we will concentrate our forces on ensuring that the money that the authorities spend is on improving study conditions for all and not on covering the walls that we students democratically decided to paint. ”, they assure.
